


A Lost Cause

by uumuu



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 07:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13806642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/pseuds/uumuu
Summary: Maedhros asks Annael to do something for him.





	A Lost Cause

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in July 2016 as a TropeBingo fill (the prompt was Extortion/Blackmail), but I didn't do much with that card in the end.

Annael risked a glance over his shoulder. The river Sirion with its swamps and massive branching was behind him, and beyond it were the huts and palisades of the Havens, clustering on a rocky spur rising from the sea, but a thick fog hid river and settlement from sight, and all he could see were Maedhros's twin brothers, standing close to him to prevent his escape. They were on open marshland, but Annael hadn't felt more cornered when crossing the Annon-in-Gelydh with the Easterlings at his heels.

“What say you?” 

Maedhros's voice pricked the skin of his neck, and he gave a shudder before he could catch himself. He stiffened his shoulders, however, and faced Maedhros again.

“How dare you ask me to do that?” he said, his tone a sum of his disbelief and fear and indignation. “You have your brothers kidnap me while I'm out collecting herbs to feed my people, and demand that I steal the Silmaril from Elwing for you?”

“I know you,” Maedhros rejoined, flatly.

“Elwing knows you too. She knows you killed her parents and her brothers.”

Maedhros's tall form gave a hiccup. His lips trembled, stretching into a grimace that it would have been improper to call a smile, yet was not wholly without humour. He folded his maimed arm over his chest and supported it with the other, his hand clutching his elbow. He turned and started pacing, chin raised as if deep in thought. 

“We merely finished what Thingol himself started,” he said, his eyes staring at something far away. “I lost three brothers in the venture, and a number of my people besides. I think we're even.” He spoke evenly, paced back and forth, then abruptly whirled towards Annael and sprang towards him, like a snake lunging forward to bite. “Or do you think I don't have a heart to mourn the dead?”

Annael had the urge to step back and put as much distance between them as he possibly could, but suppressed it just in time. He didn't want to have the twins' hands on him ever again. He steadied himself and stood his ground, studying Maedhros's face. He could still recall the unblemished elf come out of Valinor under the unhindered glitter of the stars, dazzling in his beauty, eyes bright and full of hope. He was faced now with a beauty no less dazzling, but layered over with scars and hollowed out by care, stark and true like a bleeding wound. 

“You would do better to give up,” he muttered. 

He heard the twins snicker behind his back, and was grateful that the sound attracted Maedhros's attention, prompting him to shift his grim gaze on them for an instant.

“I cannot give up, not at this point,” he said, still not looking at him.  

“The people at the Havens are refugees –”

“ _My_ people are without a home too, and have been longer than yours or Doriath's or Gondolin's.”

“Your oath in itself makes enemies out of your own kin! You have attacked Elves twice already, you cannot be surprised that the survivors would not want to deal with you." 

“The Oath can be a declaration of war, true, one that I will go through with, but only, and only, if the Silmaril be withheld from us. What makes dying in order to keep it more reasonable than returning it to its rightful owners? What sets a refusal to negotiate apart from attempting to retrieve it at all costs?” 

Annael opened his mouth. "Everything," he said, but Maedhros went on without even taking notice of it. The politician's mask was gone, and he spoke from his heart, with honesty harking back to a familiarity that all but sickened Annael now.

“My last hope, the last chance I have, is to regain the Silmaril, and maybe then I can use its power to stop Morgoth before he kills us all. Why is that so wrong? Why are Thingol's family entitled to keep it? Out of love? For revenge? Well, I love my father and my brothers, and my love runs maybe deeper than theirs ever did,” he said, his voice rising with every word. “I have done all I could to overthrow Morgoth, to reclaim the Silmarils from him, but I am no maia-child, and if Beleriand held out this long it was through my efforts, and the blood of my people, while they sat behind their Girdle, heedless of kin dying on their doorstep. What compensation would be adequate for _five hundred years_ of idleness?”

“It is not the same!”

“Why?” 

“And in any case, I _cannot_ steal the Silmaril from the people who have given me refuge,” Annael shouted back, firmly enough that Maedhros shut his mouth instead of contradicting him. 

Annael dared to hope his point of view had gotten through, that Maedhros would not put that burden on him. Maedhros took a step back, nostrils flaring while he regained his breath, the knuckles of his hand turned white against the black of his leather vest. The twins grumbled at Annael's back, and he heard them shuffling their feet, but Maedhros, his composure regained, shook his head at them. His eyes settled on Annael again.

“You have until the second sunrise from now,” he said. “We will wait not far from here, where the Taur-im-Duinath reaches out towards the swamp. After that, if the Silmaril isn't in my possession, I will attack.” He uncrossed his arms and drew the hood of his mantle over his head, hiding the upper half of his face. “I don't want to harm you and your people,” he added, in a tone soft as the whisper of a lover, and spun around to rejoin the men waiting at a distance, behind straggly, gnarled trees.

Annael still stood frozen in place when Amrod thrust his dagger into his hands and Amras pushed him back, a hand on the hilt of his own sword. 

The burden thrust onto his mind slowed Annael's steps while he crossed the river at the ford. The fog lifted as he turned towards the sea, but his thoughts remained hazy, reeling like the whirlpools which formed where the river joined the sea. He went over the options he had – tell the people at the Havens and have them flee, have them ready to face the attack. It would mean death either way, and besides it was too risky. Maedhros had to have spies inside the very Havens to be able to know exactly when he would find him alone. For all Annael knew, his men might have already crossed the river, and were waiting only for a signal. _'I don't want to harm you and your people'_. Annael clenched his jaw. Maedhros, who had been a welcome ally and a friend to him all those centuries ago when the world was still dark, would harm him and his people now, even if he said he didn't want to. 

*

The following day, in the dead of night, he crossed the river Sirion again, hurrying towards the Taur-im-Duinath, a bag clutched to his chest. The first slivers of dawn tore blackness apart behind him, and he ran as if to escape ineluctable destruction. A owl-hoot went up when he reached the trees, and Maedhros's men came forward, carrying no light apart from that of their eyes. Maedhros's taller shape loomed before him. Annael flung the bag at his feet, his heart filled by such revulsion he could have thrown up. The gem rolled out of the bag, and a cry of mixed surprise and jubilation erupted from the soldiers, but Maedhros made no sound. He bent and picked the Silmaril up. The light washed over his face, and made it seem even paler than it was in reality. 

There was no 'thank you', no empty, laughable words, and Annael was grateful for that. He only caught a glimpse of Maedhros's gaze before he turned his back on him and started retracing his steps. He wasn't sure he had done the right thing – he was quite sure he _hadn't_ – but he had prevented senseless slaughter, and he did find a measure of comfort in the idea. Furthermore, he had sworn to himself that he would rather die than talk to Maedhros ever again. 

The rising sun filled his eyes with new, blameless light. 

He forged on towards it.

**Author's Note:**

> As a Mithrim elf, Annael might have met the Fëanorians soon after they arrived in Middle-Earth.


End file.
